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Reichert and Burner: Role Reversal

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An interesting moment at yesterday’s debate between Rep. Dave Reichert (R-8) and his Democratic challenger, Darcy Burner, came when panelist C.R. Douglas, reflecting on the projected $500 billion federal deficit (not including the $700 billion Wall Street bailout), asked both candidates what they would cut. 

Sounding like Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi (and just about every other Republican I’ve ever heard when asked a similar question), Burner did not specify what she would cut. Instead, she sounded a stern note about fiscal responsibility and “economic discipline.” She talked about “performance audits” and “pay-as-you-go” rules.

“If you increase the amount you’re spending,” she said, “you have to identify where you’re going to find the money. I you decrease the amount you’re bringing in, you have to identify what you’re going to cut.” 

And she ended with this line: “I demand that our Congress live up to the basic standards that every household in this country has to.”

Certainly, the fact that Burner sounds like she’s reading from the Republican playbook has a lot to do with the failed Bush years.  “Fiscal conservative” George Bush has actually saddled the country with the largest debt in U.S. history, between $500 and $600 billion.    

For his part, Reichert sounded more like a traditional Democrat. First, like Democrats always do when hit with vague GOP economic tough talk, he criticized Burner for skimping on specifics. 

He began: “I think what you didn’t hear from my opponent is what she would cut…”  

But then, rather than answering the question himself—and saying what he would cut—he started sounding like Barack Obama (or Al Gore).

“When you talk about what we need to do and what we might cut,” he said (without talking about what we might cut), “what we really need to do is infuse money into new energy. We need to excite our economy by investing money into the newest technology to provide us with the future of energy source that will fuel our economy…” 

As his time ran out, he did start drifting back to more traditional GOP talking points, saying sternly that we needed to look at how we were going to pay for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Another issue where Burner sounded like a Republican was on gun control. Audience member (and former Kirkland GOP state Rep.) Toby Nixon asked the candidates if they agreed with the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in D.C. v. Heller . Heller upheld the 2nd Amendment.

Burner was emphatic. “I had a stalker when I was in college who threatened to kill me,” she said. She then told the story of how when she went to the police to get a restraining order, they encouraged her to get a gun and “learn how to use it” because “they wouldn’t be able to protect me.”

She concluded: “People who face real threats have the right to defend ourselves. The 2nd Amendment guarantees us that right to defend ourselves, and I agree with the S.C. decision as it applies even in Washington, DC.” 

Her last caveat, “even as it applies in Washington, DC” separated her even further from the Democratic line. Many Democrats recognize that gun control in general is a losing issue, but stick to advocating targeted gun control in urban areas. 

Reichert, who answered the question first, said simply: “Yes.”

Deflating

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I noticed this post at Calculated Risk regarding mortgage equity withdrawals, or MEW’s, on Monday, and I’ve been meaning to link to it. If you click through there’s a nice bar graph that really illustrates just how much money is being yanked out of the economy. Here it is in words:

Equity extraction was close to $700 billion per year in 2004, 2005 and 2006, before declining to $471 billion last year and will probably be less than $100 billion in 2008.

The post goes on to sort through what this might mean, and I’ll leave those technical details to the trained economists.

But as we keep hearing how consumers used home equity to finance not just lifestyles but in many cases simply to stay afloat through health and job crises, it’s hard not to conclude there’s going to be a continuing ripple effect throughout the economy.

This would seem to add to already intense deflationary pressures, both from the housing bubble collapse and recession-related job loss. As the ripples spread nothing short of a massive government intervention to help fuel demand (as opposed to repeatedly injecting cash into failing corporations) would seem to be worthy of discussion.

Paulson is already pivoting toward nationalization of banks, so who knows? By Halloween we may be looking at the new Treasury Department Works Progress Administration.

Just sayin’.

Feel the love

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State Sen. Joseph Zarelli, R- Ridgefield and ranking minority member of Ways and Means, responding to criticism of his 2007 “Convergence Northwest” conference that featured extreme-right speakers and Knesset members:

Zarelli said the conference was open to the public but told The Columbian he did not invite Muslims to make presentations because, “It’s not my purpose or goal to understand why somebody wants to kill Americans.”

I wish I could report that Democrat Jon Haugen was a worthy adversary for Zarelli in the 18th LD, but unfortunately Haugen is about as wingnutty as they come too.

I have submitted Initiative to the People 997

Initiative Measure No. 997 concerns valuation of single-family residences
for property tax purposes. I have spoken with Tim Eyman about this idea
and discussed the uniformity clause of the Washington State Constitution.

This measure would limit tax valuation of single-family residences to the
assessed value on December 31, 2005, adjusted annually for inflation but
not greater than two percent higher than the previous year’s valuation.
Should this measure be enacted into law?

Great. An end of times candidate or a Tim Eyman candidate. Some choice.

The election scorecard

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For almost a year now I have been obsessively collecting state head-to-head polls for the 2008 presidential election, and analyzing the recent polls via a Monte Carlo analysis. Once a day, on days when new polls are released, I’ve published an analysis designed to address the question, “who would win if the election was held today?”

I’m going to start posting the meat of the (nearly daily) results at Horses Ass. You can always check out the full results at Hominid Views.

Think of this as a score-board for the election through the final quarter of the game.

If you want more details on the methods used to analyze the polls, rules for accepting polls, etc., check out the simulation FAQ.

Obama McCain
100.0% probability of winning 0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 363 electoral votes Mean of 175 electoral votes


After 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins all 100,000 times. In an election held today, Obama would receive (on average) 363 to McCain’s 175 electoral votes.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ. The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

The end of The Columbian?

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The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver is reporting that it will return to its old offices in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.

The move, according to Columbian Publisher Scott Campbell, is out of the need to generate more revenue from a new six-story building constructed by Campbell and his wife, Jody, which opened south of Esther Short Park in January. The options, Campbell said, are to either lease all of the 118,000-square-foot $30 million structure or to sell it. At present, Columbian newsroom, advertising and circulation operations occupy four of the six floors in the building at 415 W. Sixth St.

And bankruptcy isn’t out of the question:

In order to make the difficult financial transition, Campbell said the company is trying to negotiate a new loan with its lender or will seek temporary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors. Chapter 11 gives a business time to reorganize and return to financial health.

Whew. I’m no expert but given what we’ve been hearing about the credit crisis created by the mortgage scandal, that sounds pretty grim.

I have to confess I have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, the heart of newspapers is news gathering, and the thought of Clark County not having a daily newspaper would mean that some 400,000 residents would find out even less about what is happening in their community. Sure, it’s possible that Oregon media would increase their coverage some, but The Oregonian has laid off tons of people this year as well. And Oregon TV stations are, well, TV stations.

On the other hand, Campbell runs a newspaper that printed the likes of Michelle Malkin for a long stretch of time, while adopting a thoroughly anti-union stance and coddling the local wingnuts. The standing joke for years has been that Campbell would be better off if he just sold the newspaper and concentrated on his apparent first love, real estate. Of course, that’s not looking so hot right now either.

The whole thing is kind of weird coming on the heels of a series of endorsements favoring Democrats. It’s as if The Columbian has come to the belated realization that the folks intent on destroying the “EM ESS EM” are not, in fact, the liberals, who despite grumping about various editorial positions and tendencies in reporting at least acknowledge the role a free press is supposed to play in our system.

Then there’s the collapse of the housing market itself and the attendant ad revenue. No point in advertising new houses when nobody is building them and nobody is buying them. So much for diversification of the Clark County economy. That turned out to be so much hot air, no surprise. The business of Clark County the last eighteen years or so has been building as many houses as possible, and now the residents shall pay the economic penalty.

They can be a cantankerous lot down there at The Columbian, so I wouldn’t rule out a McCain endorsement just yet. They seem to delight in making as many people angry as possible sometimes, just to prove a point. What the point would be with a McCain endorsement I don’t know, but trust me, they could come up with something.

Overall, the troubles at The Columbian are a continuation of ongoing problems in the industry, exacerbated by poor ownership, an unpopular editorial stance and small town cronyism. It’s entirely likely that Clark County will not have a daily newspaper at some point in the not-so-distant future.

And that’s a bad thing.

At Debate, Reichert Rhetoric Contradicts His Voting Record on Torture

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At the debate between U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert and Darcy Burner in Bellevue on Wednesday, both candidates were asked: “Are enemy combatants confined at Guantanamo Bay entitled to the rights described in the Geneva Convention?”

Reichert said, “To me that’s an easy question. The answer: ‘Yes.'” 

Apparently it wasn’t a very easy vote for Rep. Reichert, though. 

Reichert voted against the Intelligence Authorization bill in December 2007, which  included an amendment that made U.S. intelligence agencies abide by prohibitions in the Army Field Manual against torture, like waterboarding.  

The bill passed the House and Senate, though, and Bush vetoed it. Reichert voted against overriding Bush’s veto, preventing Congress from getting the two thirds majority it needed to make the anti-torture bill law.

Reichert’s votes contradicted what he told the Bellevue crowd. Talking about his career as sheriff, he said: “When you talk about torture … when you talk about bullying people into confessions. That’s something I never had to do. I know that all people need to be respected, must be respected. They’re all human beings inhabiting this earth together.”

Burner said the rights guaranteed in the Geneva Conventions, “are guaranteed to all people. Our government should be treating people fairly, even when it’s inconvenient. This is a country that was founded on the idea that every individual has fundamental rights that no government is entitled to abridge. So, do I think the people at Guantanamo have the right to basic protections of the Geneva Convention? Yes.”

Sen. Murray rides light rail, talks fiscal stimulus

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I had the opportunity to tag along with members of the real press as we covered Sen. Patty Murray, Mayor Greg Nickels and other local dignitaries on the first semi-public test run of Sound Transit’s Link Light Rail, scheduled to start service in July 2009.  Most of the time I hung out in the back of the train with the other bloggers, but when Sen. Murray walked by I just had to snag her for a couple questions about our current economic crisis.

Specifically, I asked her if there was any appetite in Congress to invest in fiscal stimulus for projects like the one we were riding on, and she said that there have been discussions about a package that would invest in infrastructure, particularly transportation, because it puts people to work immediately, but that a recent bill was blocked by the Republicans.  (All the more reason to send more and better Democrats to Congress.)

So I guess the answer was “yes,” but she didn’t sound too confident.  Near the end of the interview I asked whether there might be some federal money forthcoming to help the states with their ballooning budget deficits and she said that they were already getting such requests, but “I think everybody recognizes that this is a time when everybody is going to have to cut back.”

Huh.  By most accounts our nation now has several trillion dollars worth of critical public infrastructure—roads, bridges, transit, water, sewer, etc.—that needs to be repaired, replaced or expanded over the next two decades, much of it built as public works projects during the Great Depression.  As our economy worsens and our banking industry collapses, it may very well be left up to the federal government once again to keep America working.

Burner Calls for Constitutional Amendment Guaranteeing Right to Privacy

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At the luncheon debate between U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (R-8) and his Democratic challenger Darcy Burner at the Meydenbauer Center in downtown Bellevue today, panelist C.R. Douglas asked what Congress’s response should be if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.

Darcy Burner fielded the question first. After telling the audience that she and her husband decided to go through with her difficult pregnancy after her doctor told her if she continued the pregnancy she “might not survive it,” she said: “But that decision belongs to us. There is no politician on the planet that has the right to make it for me. The idea that there are politicians that think they have the right to tell people fundamental choices about what happens with their bodies is absurd.”

Okay, cool. But a predictable enough response from a pro-choice, Democratic female candidate.

But then she went on: “And I would support not only codifying Roe v. Wade into law,” she said, “but ensuring that the Constitutional right to basic decisions about oneself and one’s privacy is in fact a Constitutional Amendment.”

The 14th Amendment (equal protection), the 9th (rights retained by the people not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution), and the 4th Amendment (no unlawful search and seizure) have all been used by the Supreme Court to protect Americans’ privacy. But Burner is right that an explicit “right to privacy” is missing. Roe v. Wade is based on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

Guaranteeing the right to privacy in the Constitution is an unambiguous way to secure Roe v. Wade.

Her statement drew applause from the audience (a No No). The idea of a Constitutional Amendment may seem fanciful, but with polls indicating the Democrats might get up to 60 Senate seats after Election day, it could be a reality.

After the debate, I asked Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik why we hadn’t heard such a dramatic statement from Burner on this before. He said she really hadn’t been asked that direct question before.

Reichert told the audience: “I think everybody in this room knows where I stand on this issue.” In case they actually didn’t, he followed up by saying: “My religious belief is that life begins at conception. In this country we are all allowed to believe the way we want to believe. That’s why we call it a free country.”

He breezed over the obvious follow-up issue (should one person’s religious beliefs be allowed to determine the law for others?) and said simply, “My opponent wants to make this a major issue. When in fact, Congress has no say in Roe v. Wade.”

It was an interesting debate, covering everything from  the $700 billion bailout (which Reichert voted against twice and Burner was also against—saying she disagreed with Sen. Obama on it), the federal budget, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Guantanamo, trade policy, global warming, immigration, education, and even sex ed.  I’ll post a longer report tomorrow.

I will say: I ran into a Democratic operative after the debate, and he was crowing that when asked about the bailout bill, Reichert acknowledged that he wasn’t an economic expert. I expect the Burner campaign will jump on that.

The other debate

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With all the focus on the presidential debate, you may be surprised to learn that there was another debate today, this one between Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert at Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Center.  Josh was there, and will post a firsthand report here on HA later, but for the moment you can take a gander at the transcript of Andrew’s live blog.

(FYI, I spoke with Andrew briefly and felt confident that Darcy won… not that it means anything if most voters don’t see it.)

UPDATE:
The Times and the P-I have their quick takes on today’s debate.  I was particularly struck by this excerpt from the P-I:

“I still look on myself as Joe Blow from Kent, Washington, a cop who came to Congress,” Reichert said in his closing remarks.

A) He’s been in Congress for two years; it’s time Reichert started running on his congressional record rather than his self-inflated reputation as “the Sheriff,” and B)  I don’t want just some “Joe Blow” representing me in Congress, especially during a time of crisis… I want somebody exceptional, and Reichert has done absolutely nothing to show us that he is anything but just another “Joe Blow.”

Radio Goldy

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I’ll be on KUOW’s The Conversation today at around 1:15PM, talking about last night’s presidential debate.  94.9 FM… tune in.

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